From climate change to cyber security to employee diversity, corporate responsibility (CR) and sustainability touches every aspect of Symantec’s business. We’ve defined our strategy and are continually working towards our goals to operate as a responsible global citizen. In addition to our dedicated global corporate responsibility team, every day Symantec employees across the world are helping us deliver on this, creating value for both our business and our stakeholders.
We are happy to bring you an ongoing feature of the CR in Action blog – the Sustainability Spotlight - that will profile employees and their contribution to Symantec’s CR and sustainability efforts. Some are members of our CR team, others contribute through our Green Teams or volunteering, some have seen an opportunity and developed programs in their function or region -- all are making a difference.
Today we hear from Louise Hanlon, Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability Manager for the EMEA region. Louise has recently joined Symantec to develop and move forward Symantec’s Corporate Responsibility strategy and program in the EMEA region.
Three months ago I was honored to join Symantec as the Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Manager for the EMEA region based in the Reading, UK office. This is Symantec’s first CR manager outside the US, signaling our commitment to developing our global strategy.
I am passionate about helping businesses operate responsibly and forging relationships between the variety of stakeholders that make this possible, including employees, non-profits, media, government, peers/competitors and industry organizations. I am extremely happy to have this opportunity to join a company with a strong CR program and strategy in place that is clearly linked to the core business. A lot has been accomplished across Symantec’s global operations and I look forward to driving forward this momentum in the EMEA region.
Over the past few months, I have had the chance to learn about the various programs in place, and develop a strategy to support and expand our CR efforts in EMEA. While I will begin with a focus on the UK and Ireland in my first year, I am also reaching out to a variety of regions across EMEA to learn more about local activities and ensure that we continue to support the great work being done across this region. The strategy includes:
- Increasing employee engagement: There are numerous employees across EMEA who are passionate about CR and sustainability, and have been contributing in a variety of ways through volunteering, their personal passions and integrating sustainability into their day jobs. I want to connect with these employees, and provide alignment, support and direction for the great work already happening while also expanding and refining our efforts to ensure they align with our core business.
I also want to ensure that employees who are interested, but not currently active, understand the variety of ways they can become involved and have clear, easy access to the options we offer from supporting our environmental strategy and Green Teams, to volunteering for social causes, to participating in one of our employee resource groups. Most importantly, I hope to translate how our employees can leverage and transform their unique skills into vital pro bono support for our CR partners.
- Ramping up communications: At Symantec, our CR team leverages a variety of channels to communicate our progress both internally and externally including SymInfo/the intranet, the CR in Action Blog, our Corporate Responsibility website and report, our Green Teams, road shows to select offices and more. I look forward to closely measuring our progress in EMEA, and using this to tell our story both internally and externally.
- Utilizing our products: A clear opportunity I see for the CR program in EMEA is to continue leveraging the vast array of products and tools that Symantec has to offer. We have a fantastic opportunity to utilize what we have in house as is being done in various programs across the world.
For example, we are currently working on a “train the trainer” program to bring cyber security training to schools in EMEA. Through this program we will train our employees to provide our online training to schools. They in turn will be able to train other employees to do the same. We will work closely with school leaders to implement, and work with them to define a system for tracking our impacts. By putting ourselves in schools, this will also enable us to understand other needs they may have and how our employees can apply their individual skills to support these. For example, they may be interested in guest lectures, or expertise on facility management, IT, or human resources.
As mentioned earlier, I look forward to implementing all of this and to be a part of developing and executing the company’s global approach to corporate responsibility.
Louise Hanlon is Symantec's Corporate Responsibility Manager - EMEA